I've spent every day of my break so far playing a little Hollow Knight with my sister (as in, I play Hollow Knight, she watches and laughs at me/commiserates with my defeats/gives occasional hints). Idk if this counts as "a little" since I'm now.... 22 hours in :D but there's still plenty of game left to play. Supposedly a plot-focused playthrough takes about 25 hours, but it's not like I know what's relevant to the plot and what's not. I'm being very inefficient :) and I want to do the side stuff anyway!
Details about how far I am
-I got the double jump
-Found one of the sleepers (though I didn't do anything with them) and know exactly where the second is, it's just beyond a boss fight that I don't want to do :D The third is in Fog Canyon which is beyond unbreakable barriers. I have a suspicion that if I gather enough dream points, I'll get an ability to cut through those barriers, but I don't know that for sure.
-I've mostly explored every area that I have access to except for Kingdom's Edge, which I just haven't gotten around to, and the very top part of the city with the second sleeper.
-Currently avoiding all the dream fights in fear :'( but they'll have to be done at some point, especially if I'm right about the barriers.
-Started the DLC quest, and I'm very afraid :D (recurring theme; I am a nervous gamer!!) They're CLOWNS D:
I don't play a lot of 2D platformers so it's been an adjustment for sure. Hollow Knight isn't punishing, it doesn't feel cruel, but it certainly doesn't go easy on you! It'll teach you a new skill, like wall jumping, and then instantly put you in a gauntlet of spikes to ensure that you Get Good. And then you learn another new skill and are forced to learn how you can use both of them together... and so on. It DOES do mean little tricks with Surprise Spike Pits and stuff sometimes, but I feel like it didn't start doing that until you're likely to have more health, so honestly I find them funny!
It also forces you to be a little clever; I'm absolutely missing things, of course, but as you get new abilities you have to remember to go back to earlier rooms and try things out, because there's stuff hidden everywhere. Important stuff! And there's VERY little guidance about where to go next; you're almost never told to go anywhere or do anything, you just have to figure it out. It expects the best of you, but I've never gotten completely stuck, so it's pretty well designed.
... we'll ignore how it took me 20 hours to get the ability to break floors. Something you can get within the first hour or two of the game. This is fine
🙃 There was just an enemy in the way that scared me so I left! But I wasn't stuck, I explored like six entire areas between when I "should" have gotten it and when I did. Now I'm just having to go back and investigate some side things that I missed.
(My poor sister was suffering watching me. She kept trying to guide me back to that area, saying "you could go back to that room you ran away from!" and instead I would just go somewhere else :D)
Some of the boss fights are also a joy. My favorites so far are the Mantis Lords and Dung Defender; the Mantis Lords have a great rhythm to them, and Dung Defender is just so FUN because you can bounce him up like a volleyball.
I'd been hearing great things about the game for a long time, but everyone talks up the difficulty and I was worried it would be too hard. This isn't true! I die sometimes of course, and some of the bosses are frustrating... but for the most part I'm succeeding, not only at essential things but also optional harder challenges too.
Aside from the gameplay, there's a lot of little lore hints but I still don't really know what's going on with the story. That's okay! The atmosphere is incredible. I was DYING of fear my first time through Deepnest
—though, now that I've explored most of it, Deepnest and I are friends. We're cool
—and just enjoying myself in a lot of other areas. Some of them are gorgeous! And the other characters are welcome distractions from the constant danger of the environment. I love Cornifer the map man, and Quirrel my fellow adventurer, and Mato my new dad. The Midwife can fuck off though. They scared me half to death.
My sister is going home tomorrow so I'll be playing the rest alone 😤 I must be brave!
Some representative pics of 1) my favorite boss, and 2) the first decent atmospheric shot I could find on google.![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
